“Well, if this works out and I don’t shoot you in the head, then you can invite her next time. She makes websites and shit like that, right?” Without waiting for an answer, Eddie strode down the steps to the main floor. “Any chance you share her?”
“No chance,” Raider said, throwing a little more Brooklyn into his tone.
“No problem.” Eddie held up a hand in surrender and then strode over to a twenty-something kid dressed in khaki pants, a button-down, and metal-rimmed glasses, to hand over the folded paper. “This is Rex. It’s his domain.”
The kid nodded bleached blond hair and took the paper from Eddie. “Hey.” He leaned down and typed in the series of numbers.
Raider moved toward him. “Wait a minute. I need to understand what you’re doing.”
Rex scoffed. “Right.”
Raider shook his head. “I mean it.”
Eddie sighed. “That’s fair. All right.” He looked down at the paper. “It appears you have seven accounts here, and we’ll transfer funds into, what? Say fifty of our businesses? Some shell and some real?”
“Probably about a hundred businesses, since this is a new venture,” Rex said evenly, typing away. “No offense, but no trust yet.”
Eddie grinned. “Oh, we can trust Raider, here. He killed a cop for me yesterday, and I’m sure he’d hate for me to let that news out.”
“You have no proof,” Raider countered, playing along.
Rex snorted, a sinus-filled sound. “I could create some in about five minutes while role playing any online game with my other hand.”
“Cute,” Raider said, his chin up. “Now explain what you’re doing to earn your thirty percent here, or I’m gone.”
“Fifty percent,” Eddie said, watching the numbers flash across the screen.
Raider didn’t even try to fake surprise. It was expected. “We had a deal,” he reminded Eddie.
Eddie shrugged. “You didn’t really think I’d take this kind of chance for anything less than half, did you?” He shook his head. “And now that we’re in bed after the cop killing, well. I’m taking fifty, or I’m taking all of it and calling it a day.” He jerked his head toward Jonny P and another armed foot soldier on the other side of the dais. They’d been out of sight before Raider had descended the steps.
Raider sighed. “Fine. Just explain what’s happening. Then I’ll decide if I want to invest the rest of my funds with you.” He leaned in, keeping his voice hushed. “And don’t forget that I have the other half of the journal and evidence, Eddie.”
Eddie flashed his teeth. “I haven’t forgotten. But I went through what you gave me, and none of it is catastrophic. Especially after all this time.”
Raider let his own teeth shine. “You didn’t think I’d give you the good stuff up front, did you?” Yeah, he liked throwing Eddie’s words back at him.
“No.” Eddie straightened. “Okay. Rex?”
Rex typed more, read, typed more, and then nodded. “The money is there, and I’ve traced at least two of the deposits to the Lagaretoes in Thailand and the Norts in India.” He looked over his shoulder. “You’re dealing in more than drugs and antiquities, my friend.”
Raider let his face go stony. He couldn’t overplay his hand. Those trails had been added by Brigid early this morning after Angus had come up with the idea. Perhaps they could get Eddie to give them the information they needed. “Wrong.”
Eddie eyed him. “I know those organizations. You’re part of the game.”
Fuck, Raider hated that term when used with human trafficking. None of this was a game. He was going to take these assholes down if it was the last thing he ever did. “I don’t know you well enough to discuss my other businesses, Eddie.” He didn’t have to force hardness into his voice this time.
Eddie’s gaze turned calculating. “Maybe we can do more than launder money together.”
That was the plan. “We’ll see.” Raider pointed toward the screen. “Now explain what’s happening.” Eddie had just received confirmation that the money was dirty, so if he was ever going to trust, it was now. Before he found out the actual money wasn’t going to arrive in the other accounts. For now, it was all numbers on a screen.
Eddie nodded. “All right. Here’s the deal. We’ll take your funds and funnel them through our businesses in small amounts, watching for any alarm bells on the way. For this kind of transaction, we’ll use hair salons, a couple of nonprofit organizations, several churches, art galleries, and so on. It should take about a week or two, and then we’ll form several corporations together and plant seed money. You can use the corporations to create new businesses or cash out. But I figure you have enough cash.”
“I do.” Raider scratched his head as if the concept was overwhelming, which it would be to anybody unfamiliar with laundering money.
“We do cash differently, for obvious reasons,” Rex said while still typing away.
“Right.” Eddie rolled his shoulder back and winced. “That tumble down the mountain yesterday was a bruiser.” He rubbed his upper arm. “How’s your head?”
